


A Break At Home

by Celebrithil



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Family, Friendship, just friends hanging out, post-Stan O' War II, with the occasional giant robot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-10-01 12:07:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17243936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Celebrithil/pseuds/Celebrithil
Summary: Stan and Ford take a break from hunting anomalies at sea and visit Fiddleford.





	A Break At Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [josephina_x](https://archiveofourown.org/users/josephina_x/gifts).



> WWTD secret Santa for josephina_x, who asked for “Mystery trio classic post-Stan o’War II”. I hope you like it!

The day they come back from The Great Anomaly Expedition is a night, really, so early it is in the morning. Ford and Stan have left the Stan O’War II in a port close to where they found the selkies (Ford has _told_ Stanley that these weren’t ordinary sea lions!) and taken the car back home.

Home.

It is nice to be there at last.

Not that Ford has been bored on their expedition, or that he’s sick of his brother’s company (he doesn’t think he ever will, even when Lee’s at his most obnoxious), but he hasn’t had the chance to truly appreciate being back. His fear with the Rift, his meeting with the children (he still can’t quite believe that he’s a great-uncle, even now!), everything that happened that summer and that he doesn’t want to think about, and then the preparations for The Great Anomaly Expedition have left him very little time to get reacquainted with Earth in general, and with Gravity Falls in particular. Or, at least, with the Gravity Falls he remembers.

It’s changed, of course. Children have grown up, kids that didn’t exist when he left are best friends with his grand-niece, and adults have gotten older. Especially Fiddleford.

Part of him is a bit uneasy at accepting his old friend’s hospitality. The house in the woods is still his, of course (well, his and Lee’s, these days), but it is easier for Soos to run the Mystery Shack from there, and it’s not like they were going to use it while sailing anyway, so it makes sense for the young man to move in for the time being. So when they announce to their friends that they’re coming back, Fiddleford answers that he’s got rooms for them, it’ll be just like old times Stanford, and how can they refuse? Even though seeing him for the first time after all these years has been difficult, and the guilt he felt then has not completely gone away, however completely Fidds seem to have forgiven him.

The other part of him? The one that has seen his old friend look better every time they talked over the computer? The one that remembers every stupid thing they got up to in college? The one that remembers how it was to have his friend as a research assistant in Gravity Falls, before everything went wrong? That part is ecstatic. Fiddleford might have a few more killer robots than he did in college (though, somehow, none of them feel as dangerous to Ford as the little flat round one who stabbed him in the leg with a steak knife – Stabby was a _menace_ , however handy he might have been with the housework), and is maybe slightly less reasonable about size (well, that’s not his fault – he hardly had access to so much materials at college!) and bystander safety, but no-one’s gotten hurt, which clearly proves to Ford that his friend knows exactly what he’s doing (Lee just… stared at him when he explained his reasoning to him, he’s not sure why).

But, invitation or not, it’s far too early to wake him up, so they drive up to the lake to watch the sunrise. They have some coffee in a thermos that is still warm, and they build a small fire, make toast, and wait for the night to cede the place to day. It is both like old times and like new beginnings, and Ford doesn’t need to look at his brother to know that he feels the same. Twin telepathy might not be real, but they still know what the other is thinking more often than not. And, right now, Lee’s thinking about splashing him with water, if his growing smirk is to be believed. Wet he might get, but Ford is _not_ going down without a fight!

A few hours later, it is a thoroughly soaked Stanley who drives the car to the manor house. Ford can’t keep a grin off his face.

He’s not sure how exactly Fiddleford knew they were arriving right now, but he’s waiting for them near the front door as they pull in, past where the metal gate used to stand. He’s smiling widely as he bounds towards them, arms spread in welcome, looking far too chipper considering how early it still is.

They’re quickly led to their rooms, right next to each other because Fidds is thoughtful like that, and then Ford and Stan get their first real look at what Northwest Manor has become. It’s exactly as Ford expected it.

Which is to say that, except for a few rooms that seem lived in, it’s a giant workshop. There are rooms devoted to computers, others to relatively small projects that Ford hesitates between wanting to know what they are, and wanting to run away from, and what evidently used to be a ballroom is now hosting several giant robots, which may or may not have a killing function (hopefully not).

Ford loves it. Stan seems a bit more dubious, when he glances at him, but he doesn’t know Fiddleford that well, after all, even though Ford distantly recalls hearing a story about the two of them punching dinosaurs together, or something like that. Dinosaurs and punching were involved, of that he’s certain.

They spend the day getting a grand tour of Fiddleford new workshop. Ford was right: there is a grand total of four rooms that escaped the grand remodelling, two of which are the one they’ve been given. Another one is for Tate if he wants to stay overnight, and when asked about the fourth, Fiddleford only makes vague mutterings about “adopting the girl”, whatever this is supposed to mean. It seems to be a good thing anyway, as Stan grins when he hears it, so Ford doesn’t ask further. If it’s important, he’ll know about it soon enough. Fidd’s own bedroom, of course, is an engineer’s dream, and has definitely escaped nothing at all.

The kitchen, as they can see when they get a bite to eat, is similarly modified, and some of Fiddleford’s inventions should become a common sight in every household, so useful they are. Stan seems of a similar mind, because at one point Ford excuses himself for a few minutes and come back to his brother and his best friend apparently establishing a business plan for a household appliance line. It’s a bit of a weird conversation, even for Gravity Falls, because one cares about the money it could make, and the other about not sacrificing the beauty of the mechanics involved to spare a few cents. Ford sits himself at the table and listen to them, occasionally pointing out that lasting for a long time is actually a good thing for kitchen appliances, until they reached a conclusion that seems satisfying to both parties. Ford has no idea what they’ve decided upon, but this is also highly satisfying to him, because they can see the rest of the house, and now that Stan has seen the commercial potential of a few inventions, he seems a lot more excited to see what else is there.

The giant robots probably wouldn’t sell too well, but that’s what they end the day with. And if seeing them in passing was neat, actually getting inside and play with them is incredible. The trio is having a blast and completely forgetting about mundane things such as eating, which is how they don’t end up in the kitchen again before two in the morning, making grilled cheese sandwiches and sketching another robot, or a better power cell, or a giant robot business plan.

Ford is tired enough to make himself go to bed, for once (Stanley only had to tell him twice!), and he’s out like a light as soon as his head touches the pillow.

There is no way they have seen everything that Fiddleford has built, so he’s expecting another day of exploring the house, maybe even collaborate on a project, so he’s taken aback when Fiddleford suggests driving to the forest to see what sort of lil’ critters are running around.

It’s not just that he thought they were going to stay in and work on a common project, either; Ford clearly remembers that his friend had stopped enjoying searching for anomalies after a bad encounter, so he would have thought that the only contact between Fiddleford and strange creatures would be inventing something to make them stay away. Obviously, he was wrong.

Well, maybe only half-wrong, really, as Fidd’s idea of “driving” is to a great racing snail robot as transport, and they don’t get out of it once they’ve reached the forest. And while this is different from hiking and checking behind the bushes to see if something is hiding there, Ford can’t deny that this also seems a lot safer. Also, it’s a lot of fun. The racing snail slides gracefully on the forest ground, staying low enough that they can see everything, and changing speed so that places without much to see are quickly left behind, but that the interesting ones are crossed at a snail’s pace. It’s also interesting to Ford’s ever-enquiring mind to see how differently animals behave when they are approached by a giant snail instead of human beings. Some seem not to realise that they’re even observed, while others seem curious and bolder than Ford’s even seem them, sniffing at the base of the robot as to see if they can recognise the smell of this strange new beast. Others, more unfortunately, have fled at their approach, but there will be other occasions, and Ford hasn’t stopped sketching and taking notes since they got there, so he can hardly claim to be disappointed. Stan, who has spent his time pointing out different creatures, some that Ford hadn’t even noticed before his brother nudged him in the right direction, finally complains that he’s too old for this (which clearly isn’t true at all, Ford is a few minutes older and feels the perfect age for this) and wants to stretch his legs, and they return to the house, as Fiddleford isn’t completely comfortable with the idea of getting out of the snail this far in the forest.

They spend the rest of the day making plans for the rest of their stay ; Stan wants to go to the Mystery Shack, of course, and Ford is looking forward to it, as he wants to know the young man who’s sort of his nephew better (and, although he’ll never admit to it out loud, he does find some of the exhibitions pretty funny, now that he understands that Lee wasn’t doing it to undermine his work); they will spend days at the lake, and in the forest again, and of course in the workshop; and their evenings will probably be spent a lot like this one is shaping up to be: sitting in the kitchen, making plans for the future and reminiscing old stories, recounting them to the one who wasn’t there to live them, interrupting each other to add another detail, correct a fuzzy recollection or simply laughing so hard that they can’t talk anymore.

And what if this visit isn’t forever? The time they spend together now is precious (even more so because Ford had not known that his friend and his brother were going to get along so well, and it warms his heart to see them talking animatedly of how they’re going to market a T-Rex robot), but so is the time they will spend at the Shack with their grand-niblings when they come to visit, and the time when it’s just the two of them, on their boat, looking for adventure and treasure, just as they dreamed of when they were children. But right now, they’re three, fitting so well with each other that it feels as if they’ve all known each other for decades, and Ford already thinks of which arguments he’ll use to entice Fiddleford to join them in one of their next nautical adventures. Lee will back him up, he knows it.


End file.
